Originally Posted by Flaflyer
Please correct if I am misinformed, but it has been mentioned that TSOs receive no drug recognition training. If so, absent personal experience, how do they know an illegal drug when they see one? Screener searching bag sees a rolled up baggie one-half inch diameter in bottom of bag. It did not show up on the xray as a knife, or orange for explosive, and I know of no explosive that looks like green leafy material. The baggie would have five or so layers of plastic wrapped around it, preventing a clear view of the contents. It is not a threat to aviation. What happens?
Er, that's not...
exactly how an x-ray works. It's all essentially one of two colors, with a varied mix of those two colors dependent upon density. In this case, orange for organic materials, and blue for inorganic.
But to answer your question specifically, no, there's no drug recognition training that I'm aware of.
(And I can't answer the second question with a specific statement because I'm fairly confident that it would be considered SSI. Were it me, though, the end-result is that it'd be cleared for travel in about two and a half seconds.)
On the other note, how does TSA train for intra state travel in California, which has a liberal medical marihuana law. There must be persons with prescriptions who fly LAX-SFO. How often does TSA find legal green leafy stuff in a carry on? What happens?
As far as I know, and mind you this is just speculation, but it's still illegal on a Federal level, right? You'd really need to ask someone who works in CA about that one, though; any answer I give at all would be just gross speculation and guesswork.